Onsdag 5 november 2014

Kinas ambassadör till USA, Cui Tiankai, ger en intervju till Foreign Policy inför Barack Obamas besök till Beijing nästa vecka. Ambassadören ger bland annat sin syn på protesterna i Hongkong där ”det finns individer och organisationer i USA som verkligen är inblandade i situationen”. Enligt Cui är det ”lagstyre” som Hongkong behöver, inte demokrati. Since late September, Beijing has been facing a mini-crisis in Hong Kong, where thousands have protested for the right to be more involved in the election process, which is supposed to change to universal suffrage in 2017. ”The issue in Hong Kong is not democracy. It’s the rule of law, whether people should respect and maintain rule of law, or whether they should try to hurt it,” Cui said. ”People’s normal life and social order is disrupted. This is hurting the rule of law in Hong Kong. Without rule of law, there’s no democracy.

Den institutionelle optimisten Cheng Li tycker att det fjärde plenumets tema — styre i enlighet med konstitutionen och lagen — ligger helt rätt i tiden och han hoppas att reformer av rättsväsendet ska kunna utgöra ett långsiktigt komplement till kampen för att stävja korruptionen. Despite the failure of the recent plenum to point to philosophical and ideological change in the CCP’s governance of China, it outlines some important legal reforms. In particular, its establishment of circuit courts, which will operate across administrative regions, will bolster judicial independence. This change, along with development of a mechanism to keep records of officials who interfere in judicial cases, will ostensibly limit the party’s influence in legal affairs. The plenum also highlights the imperative for professional training of lawmakers, judges and prosecutors and initiates a liability accounting system to hold officials accountable for poor decisions.

Bland de som kommer till Beijing nästa vecka för Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum finns Japans premiärminister Shinzo Abe. Men trots den senaste tidens försök att förbättra den inflammerade relationen länderna emellan är det osäkert om det kommer vara möjligt för Shinzo Abe att träffa den kinesiske presidenten Xi Jinping för enskilda samtal. While he has said repeatedly he wants to hold a meeting with Xi, Abe has also made clear that he will not agree to any preconditions to achieve that goal. A high-ranking government official said Abe’s posture reflects his thinking that a meeting may well not be held. And this is one of the reasons Beijing harbors deep-rooted doubts about Abe. With the APEC conference looming, the Chinese Foreign Ministry held a symposium on Oct. 29. Asked about the possibility of an Abe-Xi meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, ”We have a practice of being hospitable to all visitors.” At the same time, Wang added, ”It is a fact that issues and hurdles exist and those cannot be avoided.”

Sex amerikanska forskare ger sin syn på hur relationen mellan Kina och USA ser ut för tillfället och vilka frågor president Barack Obama bör lyfta i samtal med sin motpart Xi Jinping när de möts under Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum nästa vecka. David Shambaugh: The U.S.-China relationship has exhibited both elements of cooperation and competition for fifty years since President Nixon made his historic visit to China. Until 2009 cooperation was the dominant feature, but since that time competition is now the dominant feature. The competition is comprehensive–across the diplomatic, economic, political, ideological, cultural (soft power), military/strategic, bilateral, regional, and (increasingly) global domains. The single greatest challenge to both nations for the foreseeable future is to manage this competition–without allowing it to bleed increasingly into a full adversarial relationship, while making every possible effort to expand the zone of cooperation between these two great powers. This will not be easy, given an array of factors and influences, but both presidents and both nations must do everything possible to achieve a cooperative–rather than adversarial–future together.